4 ms·

I must be maintaining the wrong systems, because over here 95% of the time is reacting to emergencies (some technical, but most fabricated by management)

qop 8y ago
First thing that came to my mind too! I've had two "Please call me, it's broke" calls just this morning!
- WJW 8y ago
  Why does your manager know this before you do though?
  - rurp 8y ago
    It could be the case that nothing is actually broken. I have unfortunately received a number of similar calls on systems that were working exactly as specified. Random nonsense "disasters" can happen a lot in dysfunctional companies.
  - sli 8y ago
    I would never in a million years, as a developer, give my personal phone number to a client. That's probably why. I get the same issue where I work. The client states that "everything is broken," but it often turns out that their own servers are down (or sometimes our API guys made a breaking change and I wasn't informed, but that's not common anymore). I find this stuff out when I get to work in the morning, because they certainly aren't calling me directly.
    - lostcolony 8y ago
      I think the implication is that the system should alert you directly. Though if you are building systems for clients to run, you obviously would want the system alerting them, not you.
  - qop 8y ago
    It's actually the opposite way around for me, but I fill a senior role that intersects directly with high-value vendors. I'm basically on-call 24/7 and I am in the office whenever I feel like it or when I need to work on code. I log my interactions with my supervisor, he will occasionally check with me to follow up but I can fix 99% of what they call me about on my own. If I need help, it's usually just expert knowledge that I can ask around the office for. But of course other devs have different roles and workflows.
  - hnal943 8y ago
    You're assuming 1) there's a legitimate technical problem and 2) the person calling is management and not a user
bognition 8y ago
I doubt you're working on the wrong systems, but working for the wrong people.
some_account 8y ago
I had it like that at my last job. It was technical issues every day. The teams were spending at least half their time just troubleshooting. Nobody wanted to rip out the old problematic systems and start over. So I left. You should do the same. Plenty of jobs out there where you can grow and actually build high quality solutions.
megaman22 8y ago
I've spent a couple hours every morning the last eight Tuesdays explaining to a customer that the software that they purchased from us, and installed on their servers, goes down for a few minutes at 1:00 AM because their server team is rebooting those servers to apply updates. Every week, same time, same issue, same cause, same review and root cause analysis demanded. Fixing broken processes in broken companies is 1000 times harder than anything else in software.

qop 8y ago

First thing that came to my mind too! I've had two "Please call me, it's broke" calls just this morning!

WJW 8y ago
Why does your manager know this before you do though?
- rurp 8y ago
  It could be the case that nothing is actually broken. I have unfortunately received a number of similar calls on systems that were working exactly as specified. Random nonsense "disasters" can happen a lot in dysfunctional companies.
- sli 8y ago
  I would never in a million years, as a developer, give my personal phone number to a client. That's probably why. I get the same issue where I work. The client states that "everything is broken," but it often turns out that their own servers are down (or sometimes our API guys made a breaking change and I wasn't informed, but that's not common anymore). I find this stuff out when I get to work in the morning, because they certainly aren't calling me directly.
  - lostcolony 8y ago
    I think the implication is that the system should alert you directly. Though if you are building systems for clients to run, you obviously would want the system alerting them, not you.
- qop 8y ago
  It's actually the opposite way around for me, but I fill a senior role that intersects directly with high-value vendors. I'm basically on-call 24/7 and I am in the office whenever I feel like it or when I need to work on code. I log my interactions with my supervisor, he will occasionally check with me to follow up but I can fix 99% of what they call me about on my own. If I need help, it's usually just expert knowledge that I can ask around the office for. But of course other devs have different roles and workflows.
- hnal943 8y ago
  You're assuming 1) there's a legitimate technical problem and 2) the person calling is management and not a user

bognition 8y ago

I doubt you're working on the wrong systems, but working for the wrong people.

some_account 8y ago

I had it like that at my last job. It was technical issues every day. The teams were spending at least half their time just troubleshooting. Nobody wanted to rip out the old problematic systems and start over. So I left. You should do the same. Plenty of jobs out there where you can grow and actually build high quality solutions.

megaman22 8y ago

I've spent a couple hours every morning the last eight Tuesdays explaining to a customer that the software that they purchased from us, and installed on their servers, goes down for a few minutes at 1:00 AM because their server team is rebooting those servers to apply updates. Every week, same time, same issue, same cause, same review and root cause analysis demanded. Fixing broken processes in broken companies is 1000 times harder than anything else in software.